Imagine a telephone technology that allows more than one party to be on a telephone call at the same time—you might want to call it a conference call. Now, imagine trying to explain this technology to your grandfather or grandmother that grew up in the 20's. They would look at you like you are crazy. Not because you were blowing them away with a deep, technological description of a new innovation but rather, they would think you were crazy because it would sound very much like the telephone systems they grew up with—the party lines. It was not all that long ago that you could actually find party line service being offered and used by telephone customers. In case you are not aware of it, prior to 1970, some rural residential customers and even city residential customers did not have private telephone lines running to their homes. Rather, a single line was used by multiple homes, sometimes as many as 20 or more homes. With a party line, while you are in the middle of a telephone conversation, your neighbor could simply pick up his or her telephone and listen to your conversation. Similarly, if you wanted to place a call, when you picked up the telephone receiver you may find that someone else was already engaged in a telephone call at the time. To use the telephone, you would have to convince them to hang up and free up the line for your use or, simply wait. So, you can see why a high-level explanation of a conference call system would sound crazy to your grandparents.
However, in today's world, where every house has one or more private lines, businesses are spread out across the country and the world, and decisions need to be made in a timely manner, one can appreciate the existence of conference calling capabilities. Conference call technology has migrated through the years from 3-way calling, to today's highly complex conference call systems that enable users to setup a dial-in conference call number and an access code to enable call conferencing. In operation, a user dials the conference call number and enters or states the access code to gain access to the multi-party conference call.
As with most advances in technology, the advancements in conference call technology were not immune to the “VCR Syndrome”. The VCR syndrome refers to the scenario in which a great technological advancement is in essence, unavailable to many users simply because it is too complicated to learn. Although user interfaces have been introduced and deployed for conference call systems, there is still a need in the art for a new user interface that makes the process of setting up and managing a conference call more accessible to a wider range of users.
In a business setting, meetings are simply unavoidable. However, the more travel time that can be saved through the use of conference calls, the more time that can be spent working on the company's bottom line. As many will be aware, simply introducing technology does not necessarily mean that it will be adopted by the public. Many times the technology has to be dummied down to make it easier to use. Other characteristics that help a new technology to be adopted include being reliable, intuitive, seamless, ambient and non-disruptive to normal daily routines. It is beneficial for a technology not just to provide a solution, but to provide a solution that eases the time schedule crunch felt by many business persons. In the world of conferencing, it is desirable for a system that not only facilitates the conference, but that makes interfacing and participating in the conference an easy task and that can provide solutions to other problems that can either arise in a conferencing scenario or that can be uniquely met through a conferencing system. Thus, there is a need in the art for a conference call system that can address these desires.